"Khh... khh... khh." A raspy, guttural sound was all that escaped the masked man's throat, but his exposed eyes were filled with mockery.
Xia Yunxue's anger surged. "This is your last chance," she said coldly. "Who sent you to do this? What are you trying to accomplish?"
A bizarre smile crept across the masked man's face. Without any discernible movement, his body began to tremble, and filthy blood streamed from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
"Hmph!" Xia Yunxue instantly crushed his neck and tossed the body aside like a burlap sack. It quickly dissolved into a pool of blood, his body and Divine Soul utterly annihilated.
"Members of the Blood Demon Lineage." Her expression was as black as ink. 'These Demon Remnants are getting more and more brazen.'
It was the first time Song Changsheng had ever seen this side of his mother. In his mind, she had always been a gentle, virtuous woman.
"Sheng'Er, are you all right?" Only after confirming that Song Changying was not in any serious danger did Xia Yunxue turn to Song Changsheng, her face etched with heartache as she examined his wounds.
Discovering they were only minor wounds, she hugged Song Changsheng and breathed a sigh of relief. She had already lost her husband; she could not bear to lose her only son, too.
Song Changsheng forced a smile. "Mom, I'm fine. It's just... the clan uncles..."
"It's all my fault. I arrived too late." Xia Yunxue's heart filled with self-recrimination. 'If only I had been a little faster, would things have turned out completely differently?'
"It's not your fault. No one expected these Demon Remnants to actually target us. We should retrieve the clan uncles' bodies before anything else happens," Song Changsheng said, comforting her in a low voice.
Carrying the unconscious Song Changying, the two returned to the site of the ambush. The area was a scene of utter devastation, littered with toppled trees.
Several bodies lay there, solitary and still.
Song Luding had been sliced in two at the waist, his Bronze Cauldron shattered to pieces.
Even in death, Song Luzi's eyes were wide with fury. A gaping hole had been torn in his chest, his heart nowhere to be found.
All that remained of Song Changjiu was a headless corpse, his head nowhere to be seen. Even in death, his hand was clamped tightly around the hilt of a broken sword.
Gazing upon the tragic, heroic scene, Song Changsheng felt the world spin and nearly lost his footing. Only a quarter of an hour ago, they had all been laughing and joking together.
Song Changjiu's goofy smile seemed to flash before his eyes, yet now they were separated forever by death. He was only fifteen; his life had just begun...
"Alas... they shed the last of their blood for the clan. I will report this to the family and request honors on their behalf." Xia Yunxue sighed faintly. She had seen such scenes all too often; the Song Clan had shed far too much blood over the years.
"They're dead. What good are honors now?" Song Changsheng said, his voice low.
"Their families need the rewards that come with these honors."
The Song Clan had been established for hundreds of years and had been through constant conflict, yet it still maintained an incredible degree of unity. The most important reason for this was its strict system of rewards and punishments.
The clan never failed to provide for the families of those who bled and died in its service.
Song Changsheng nodded silently. After respectfully gathering the bodies and cleaning up the battlefield, Xia Yunxue personally retrieved the children hiding in the cave and led them all back to the clan.
The clan held a grand funeral for the fallen, and compensation was distributed according to their contributions. But with the departed already gone, such gestures were little more than a comfort to the living.
The Demon Cultivator attack sent shockwaves through the entire clan. Even the Clan Leader came out of his closed-door cultivation ahead of schedule.
After the funeral, Song Xianming personally issued an order, dispatching Third Elder Song Luyao and Fourth Elder Song Luhuai. They were to take Demon-Subduing Spiritual Artifacts and disciples from the Law Enforcement Hall down the mountain to purge the demons.
They conducted a sweeping search of the entire Moon Viewing Mountain Range and eventually rooted out more than a dozen Demon Cultivators. However, they failed to catch any "big fish" or obtain any useful intelligence, and in the end, they could only return in frustration.
But none of this had anything to do with Song Changsheng, who was currently focused on healing his injuries.
For his outstanding performance during the mission and for the contributions of discovering an Abnormal Spirit Root and the Twin Spirit Roots, the clan rewarded him with two hundred Spirit Stones and a Tier Two Low-Grade Rejuvenation Pill. With the help of the Spirit Pill, his injuries healed quickly...
In the courtyard, Song Changsheng slowly exhaled a breath of impure air. "I really can't be casually drinking Tier Two Spirit Wine at my current cultivation," he said, a note of lingering fear in his voice. "I doubt I'll be so lucky next time."
His spiritual power had been so depleted at the time that, out of desperation, he had taken several large gulps of the Tier Two Low-Grade Spirit Wine he'd gotten from his Fifth Uncle, Song Luzhou.
Fortunately, his parents had helped him build a solid foundation from a young age, making his Meridians exceptionally wide and resilient. He had also been in a state of extreme exertion at the time.
Otherwise, the immense Spiritual Power contained within the Tier Two Spirit Wine would have certainly caused him to explode on the spot. He still felt a pang of fear just thinking about it.
It was a classic case of youthful recklessness. That was Song Changsheng's first life-or-death battle, and once the adrenaline hit, he'd thrown all caution to the wind.
If he had to do it over again now, he certainly wouldn't dare to drink that much.
Feeling that his injuries had mostly healed, Song Changsheng took out four Qiankun Bags.
These were the Qiankun Bags from the four men he had slain. He had only taken these bags and their Magical Artifacts; everything else he had given to the descendants of Song Luding and the others, as well as to Song Changying.
'Let's see what I got from my first-ever spoils of war.' Song Changsheng thought with some anticipation, beginning to focus his energy on breaking the Restrictions on the bags.
Since their owners were already dead and their souls extinguished, he opened the four Qiankun Bags without much effort.
He first inspected the Qiankun Bags of the two Qi Refining Fourth Layer Demon Cultivators. They were appallingly poor. In total, there were only fifteen Spirit Stones. Other than a few Pills and some valuable ores, the rest was just a pile of junk.
The Qi Refining Eighth Layer cultivator's bag was slightly better stocked. It contained fifty-two Spirit Stones, some ores useful for Artifact Refining, and several Demonic Scriptures.
He burned the scriptures immediately. 'Best not to keep something so harmful,' he thought.
Finally, there was the bag from the Qi Refining Ninth Layer Demon Cultivator. He must have been a minor leader, as his stash was the most substantial. It held ninety Spirit Stones, plus other resources like Pills and ores worth nearly another hundred Spirit Stones.
As he rummaged through the last of the items, a Purple Jade Bottle caught Song Changsheng's eye.
Purple Jade was quite valuable; containers made from it could prevent Spiritual Qi from dissipating over long periods. They were typically used to store precious Spiritual Objects, which made Song Changsheng eager to see what was inside.
He carefully pulled out the stopper. A strange fragrance immediately drifted out. Song Changsheng took one glance inside before quickly sealing the bottle again, exclaiming in delight, "It's actually Earth Milk Spiritual Liquid!"
Earth Milk Spiritual Liquid was a precious Spiritual Liquid found at the heart of an Earth Vein. Consuming it could advance one's cultivation and cleanse one's muscles and marrow—a truly rare and sought-after treasure.
"He must have been saving this to break through to the Qi Refining Great Perfection stage," Song Changsheng mused, admiring the Purple Jade Bottle in his hand, unable to put it down.
There are four bottlenecks in the Qi Cultivation Stage: breaking into the first layer, the fourth layer, the seventh layer, and the Great Perfection realm.
Among them, breaking through to the Great Perfection realm is the most difficult and takes an immense amount of time.
However, the process can be accelerated with external aids, such as this Earth Milk Spiritual Liquid.
'This is perfect. I can use this to raise my cultivation to the next level.' However, Song Changsheng had no intention of saving it until he reached the Qi Refining Ninth Layer.
Unlike those Demon Cultivators and Loose Cultivators, he could simply exchange clan contribution points for a pill to aid his breakthrough when the time came.
Such were the benefits of having a clan at his back. His starting point was naturally a cut above the rest...